Dr. Andrew C. Fortier

Survey Affiliate

General Interest/Area of Focus

Andrew Fortier specializes in North American Eastern Woodlands archaeology with a primary focus on the American Bottom. Most of his work has been directed at the Middle Woodland period, but he has also analyzed and published assemblages from virtually all time periods. He has authored or co-authored 13 of the 28 FAI-270 Site Reports volumes published by the University of Illinois Press. His interests are diverse, but mainly focused on prehistoric economy, Middle Woodland symbolism and cosmology, house construction practices through time, technological-subsistence practices, field methodology, rock art, interregional interaction within Illinois, and culture history via historical processualism. His dissertation covered the first agricultural societies (Karanovo-Kremikovsti) of Bulgaria with an emphasis on establishing Early Neolithic painted pottery stylistic ceramic zones and on examining the affect of local environments on settlement stability.

Other research interests include the analysis of dog coprolites from the Janey B. Goode site from southwestern Illinois. Over a hundred individual samples from this site under the direction of Dr. Fortier are being examined for macro-fauna, parasites, DNA, hair structure, and bacteria. In addition, blood panels will be run to establish nutritional and health levels for a 1000 year old dog population. This study is being undertaken in conjunction with researchers from the Department of Anthropology, the Vet-Med College and Food and Nutritional Sciences at the University of Illinois.

Fortier has authored both articles and book chapters on various aspects of Illinois archaeology and coedited several books, including most recently a University of Nebraska book depicting Late Woodland societies in the Mid-continent. He has been a member of the Illinois Archaeological Survey for nearly 25 years and has served on numerous committees, as well as serving on the IAS Board. He is a member of the Society for American Archaeology, SEAC, MAC, and WAS. He has also served as a reviewer of manuscripts intended for journal or book publication, including American Antiquity, Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, University of Alabama Press, Illinois Archaeology, as well as for internal ITARP publications. He has been an invited lecturer for classes in the Department of Anthropology, Landscape Architecture, and Art History and has delivered numerous public outreach presentations for various organizations in the Champaign-Urbana area. He has been a Ford Fellowship recipient, an IREX Eastern Europe Preparatory Dissertation Research Fellow, and an IREX Eastern Europe Exchange Fellow becoming the first American Archaeologist to do extended research in Bulgaria since 1939.

Current Research

Fortier has been actively involved in the analysis of several American Bottom sites excavated by ITARP, and most recently, a late Middle Woodland site assemblage excavated from western Illinois in Scott County. He is also participating in a prehistoric ceramic project with ATAM Director Sarah Wisseman, examining differences in ceramic structure associated with rock boiling in pots versus open fire cooking. This ongoing project has also involved the thin sectioning of prehistoric Middle Woodland pots from the American Bottom hoping to establish firing temperatures as well as the durability of pots vis a vis various tempering agents. Fortier has also been involved with Dr. Richard Hughes in a number of obsidian sourcing projects.

Previous Positions

1989–1994 Research Associate, RIP-FAI-270, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.1984–1988 Project Director, for the 5.8 Mile Extension of FAI-255 Project, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.1978–1983 Site Director, FAI-270 Archaeological Mitigation Project, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Selected Chapters in Books

2001 A Tradition of Discontinuity: American Bottom Early and Middle Woodland Culture History Reexamined. In The Archaeology of Traditions, Agency and History Before and After Columbus, edited by T. R. Pauketat, pp. 174–194. University Press of Florida.

1993 American Bottom House Types of the Archaic and Woodland Periods: An Overview. In Highways to the Past:Essays on Illinois Archaeology in Honor of Charles J. Bareis, edited by T.E. Emerson, A.C. Fortier, and D.L McElrath, pp. 260–275. Vol. 5. Numbers 1&2.

1986 Early Woodland Cultural Variation, Subsistence, and Settlement in the American Bottom, Illinois, with Thomas Emerson. In Early Woodland Archaeology, edited by K.B. Farnsworth and T.E. Emerson, pp. 475–522. Center for American Archeology Press, Kampsville, Illinois.

1983 Settlement and Subsistence at the Go-Kart North Site: A Late Archaic Titterington Occupation in the American Bottom, Illinois. In Archaic Hunters and Gatherers in the American Midwest, edited by J.L. Phillips and J.A. Brown, pp. 243–260. New World Archaeological Record. Academic Press.

Selected Peer Reviewed Articles

2008 The Archaeological Contexts and Themes of Middle Woodland Symbolic Representation in the American Bottom. Illinois Archaeology 20:1–47.

2006 The Land Between Two Traditions: Middle Woodland Societies of the American Bottom. In Recreating Hopewell, edited by Douglas K. Charles and Jane E. Buikstra, pp. 328–338. University Press of Florida.

TARR Research Reports

2007The Archaeology of the East St. Louis Mound Center: Part II The Northside Excavations, edited by Andrew C. Fortier. Transportation Archaeological Research Reports. No. 22.

2004The Petite Michele Site. An Early Middle Woodland Occupation in the American Bottom. Transportation Archaeological Research Reports. No. 19.